Media Release
July 3 2007
Smart suit doesn’t miss a beat
Imagine
wearing a smart T-shirt or a suit embedded with tiny electronics that
can monitor your heart or respiratory function wirelessly. When dirty,
you take it off and throw it in the wash or have it dry-cleaned.
Researchers from the University of South Australia have been using
garment integrated electronic technology to develop smart garments that,
when placed on electronic hangers, enable monitored data to be
downloaded in a heartbeat to a computer in your wardrobe, and then be
recharged ready for wearing.
And there’s no need to worry about your heart skipping a beat while your
garment is being cleaned, according to researcher and Director of
UniSA’s Wearable Computer Laboratory,
Professor Bruce Thomas.
“For continuous monitoring, you can take off one garment and put on
another smart garment so, instead of having just one heart monitor, you
can have a wardrobe of them,” Prof Thomas said.
Prof Thomas points out that his researchers were not the first to think
of this technology, but “we’re the first worldwide to develop smart
garment management technology that works,” he said.
“The wardrobe has a touch screen on the outside and conductive metal
bands spanning the hanging rail inside, with wires connecting it to a
computer in the base of the wardrobe. When we place electronic hangers,
each with their own ID and metal connection, on the rail, it detects the
hangers and smart garments incorporating the conductive material and
integrated electronics,” Prof Thomas said.
“Through this connection, the computer identifies, for example, that
hanger 123 has coat 45 on it, which has stored heart monitoring data
that needs to be downloaded and the hanger recharged,” he said.
Garments with communication technology only and a wireless connection
enable users to access heart monitoring through a simple blue tooth or
zigbee network, eliminating the need for expensive heart monitoring
equipment to be placed in each garment.
Smart garments in the future may be used for a range of other monitoring
services such as at home outpatient care and for people with dementia,
enabling them to have a full life for as long as possible with a minimum
level of intervention - and they can be monitored without having to
learn to use a new device.
“The garments enable us to monitor people’s vital statistics and
activity levels – when they get up, walk around, make breakfast and
dinner, or sleep - but more importantly, we can determine if they are
missing meals, fall over or stop moving. The technology can distinguish
between normal and abnormal events and alert family or emergency
services or, for people who live in retirement villages, alert local
medical staff,” Prof Thomas said.
The smart wardrobe can also be adapted for other uses including the self
diagnosis of faulty monitoring equipment; scheduling cleaning and
dry-cleaning; a fashion butler to help people accessorise, colour match
and select appropriate clothing for special occasions; and for
preloading news, music and daily schedules into smart garments.
The research is being undertaken by computer and information science PhD
student
Aaron Toney and final year computer systems engineering student
Wynand Marais, under the supervision of Prof Thomas.
Contact for interview
-
Professor Bruce Thomas office (08) 8302 3464 mobile 0408 828 942 email bruce.thomas@unisa.edu.au
Media contact
- Geraldine Hinter office (08) 8302 0963 mobile 0417 861 832 email geraldine.hinter@unisa.edu.au